No More Learning

"

But it is more than probable that discouragement of that kind was
only momentary with him, and that in his sermons, as well as in his
conversations with Boniface, he did his utmost to stimulate the courage of
the people and the general. His correspondence includes a series of letters
written about this time to the Count of Africa, which manifest here and
there a very warlike spirit. These letters are most certainly apocryphal.
Yet they do reveal something of what must have been the sentiments just
then of the people of Hippo and of Augustin himself. One of these letters
emphatically congratulates Boniface upon an advantage gained over the
Barbarians.

"Your Excellency knows, I believe, that I am stretched upon my bed, and
that I long for my last day to come. I am overjoyed at your victory. I urge
you to save the Roman city. Rule your soldiers like a good Count. Do not
trust too much to your own strength. Put your glory in Him Who gives
courage, and you will never fear any enemy. Farewell! "

The words do not matter much. Whatever may have been Augustin's last
farewell to the defender of Hippo, it was no doubt couched in language not
unlike this. In any case, posterity has wished to believe that the dying
bishop maintained to the end his unyielding demeanour face to face with the
Barbarians. It would be a misuse of words to represent him as a patriot
in the present sense of the term. It is no less true that this African,
this Christian, was an admirable servant of Rome. Until his death he kept
his respect for it, because in his eyes the Empire meant order, peace,
civilization, the unity of faith in the unity of rule.




IV

SAINT AUGUSTIN


In the third month of the siege, he fell ill. He had a fever--no doubt an
infectious fever. The country people, the wounded soldiers who had taken
refuge in Hippo after the rout of Boniface, must have brought in the germs
of disease. It was, moreover, the end of August, the season of epidemics,
of damp heats and oppressive evenings, the time of the year most dangerous
and trying for sick people.

All at once, Augustin took to his bed. But even there, upon the bed in
which he was going to die, he was not left in quiet. People came to ask his
prayers for some possessed by devils. The old bishop was touched; he wept
and asked God to give him this grace, and the devils went out of those poor
crazy men. This cure, as may well be thought, made a great noise in the
city. A man brought him another one sick to be healed. Augustin, being most
weary, said to the man:

"My son, you see the state I am in. If I had any power over illnesses, I
should begin by curing myself. "

But the man had no idea of being put off: he had had a dream. A mysterious
voice had said to him, "Go and see Augustin: he will put his hands on the
sick person, who will rise up cured. " And, in fact, he did. I think these
are the only miracles the saint made in his life. But what matters that,
when the continual miracle of his charity and his apostolate is considered?

Soon the bishop's illness grew worse. Eventually, he succeeded in
persuading them not to disturb him any more, and that they would let him
prepare for death in silence and recollection. During the ten days that
he still lingered, nobody entered his cell save the physicians, and the
servants who brought him a little food. He availed himself of the quiet to
repent of his faults. For he was used to say to his clergy that "even after
baptism, Christians--nay, priests, however holy they might be, ought never
go out of life without having made a general confession. " And the better
to rouse his contrition, he had desired them to copy out on leaves the
Penitential Psalms, and to put these leaves on the wall of his room. He
read them continually from his pillow.

Here, then, he is alone with himself and God. A solemn moment for the great
old man!

He called up his past life, and what struck him most, and saddened him, was
the foundering of all his human hopes. The enemies of the Church, whom he
had battled with almost without ceasing for forty years, and had reason to
believe conquered--all these enemies were raising their heads: Donatists,
Arians, Barbarians. With the Barbarians' help, the Arians were going to be
the masters of Africa. The churches, reformed at the price of such long
efforts, would be once more destroyed. And see now! the authority which
might have supported them, which he had perhaps too much relied upon--well,
the Empire was sinking too. It was the end of order, of substantial peace,
of that minimum of safety which is indispensable for all spiritual effort.
From one end to the other of the Western world, Barbarism triumphed.

Sometimes, amid these sad thoughts of the dying man, the clangour of
clarions blared out--there was a call to arms on the ramparts. And these
musics came to him in his half-delirious state very mournfully, like the
trumpets proclaiming the Judgment Day. Yes, it might well be feared that
the Day of Wrath was here! Was it really the end of the world, or only the
end of a world? . . . Truly, there were then enough horrors and calamities to
make people think of the morrow with dismay. Many of the signs predicted
by Scripture dazed the imagination: desolations, wars, persecutions of the
Church, increased with terrific steadiness and cruelty. Yet all the signs
foretold were not there. How many times already had humanity been deceived
in its fear and its hope! In reality, though all seemed to shew that the
end of time was drawing nigh, no one could tell the day nor the hour of
the Judgment. Hence, men should watch always, according to the words of
Christ. . . . But if this trial of Barbarian war was to pass like the others,
how woeful it was while it endured! How hard for Augustin, above all, who
saw nearly the whole of his work thrown down.

One thought at least consoled him, that since his conversion, for forty
years and more, he had done all he was able--he had worked for Christ
even beyond his strength. He said to himself that he left behind him the
fruit of a huge labour, a whole body of doctrine and apology which would
safeguard against error whatever was left of his flock and of the African
Church. He himself had founded a Church which might serve as an example,
his dear Church of Hippo, that he had done his best to fashion after the
divine plan. And he had also founded convents, and a library full of books,
which had become still larger recently through the generosity of Count
Darius. He had lessoned his clergy who, once the disasters were past, would
scatter the good seed of Truth. Books, monasteries, priests, a sure and
solid nourishment for the mind, shelters and guides for souls--there is
what he bequeathed to the workers of the future. And with a little joy
mingling with his sorrow, he read on the corner of the wall where his bed
was, this verse of the Psalm: _Exibit homo ad opus suum et operationem suam
usque ad vesperum_--"Man goeth forth unto his work and to his labour until
the evening. " He, too, had worked until evening.

If the earthly reward seemed to slip from him now, if all was sinking
around him, if his episcopal city was beleaguered, if he himself, although
still a strong man--"he had the use of all his limbs," says Possidius;
"a keen ear and perfect sight"--if he himself was dying too soon, it was
doubtless in expiation for the sins of his youth. At this remembrance of
his disorders, the tears fell over his face. . . . And yet, however wild had
been his conduct at that time, he could descry in it the sure marks of his
vocation. He recalled the despair and tears of his mother, but also his
enthusiasm when he read the _Hortensius_; his disgust for the world and
all things when he lost his friend. In the old man he recognized the new.
And he said to himself: "Nay! but that was myself. I have not changed. I
have only found myself. I have only changed my ways. In my youth, in the
strongest time of my mistakes, I had already risen to turn to Thee, my
God! "

His worst foolishness had been the desire to understand all things. He had
failed in humility of mind. Then God had given him the grace to submit his
intelligence to the faith. He had believed, and then he had understood, as
well as he could, as much as he could. In the beginning, he acknowledged
very plainly that he did not understand. And then faith had thrown open
the roads of understanding. He had splendidly employed his reason, within
the limits laid down against mortal weakness. Had that not been the proud
desire of his youth? To understand! What greater destiny?

To love also. After he had freed himself from carnal passions, he had much
employed his heart. He thought of all the charity he had poured out upon
his people and the Church, upon all he had loved in God--upon all he had
done, upon all the consequence of his labour, inspired and strengthened by
the divine love. . . . Yes, to love--all was in that! Let the Barbarians come!
Had not Christ said: "Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the
world"? So long as there shall be two men gathered together for love of
Him, the world will not be entirely lost, the Church and civilization will
be saved. The religion of Christ is a leaven of action, understanding,
sacrifice, and charity. If the world be not at this hour already condemned,
if the Day of Judgment be still far off, it is from this religion that
shall arise the new influences of the future. . . .

And so Augustin forgot his sufferings and his human disappointments in
the thought that, in spite of all, the Church is eternal. The City of God
gathered in the wreckage of the earthly city: "The Goth cannot capture what
Christ protects"--_Non tollit Gothus quod custodit Christus_. And as his
sufferings increased, he turned all his thoughts on this unending City,
"where we rest, where we see, where we love," where we find again all the
beloved ones who have gone away. All--he called them all in this supreme
moment: Monnica, Adeodatus, and her who had nearly lost herself for him,
and all those he had held dear. . . .

On the fifth day of the calends of September, Augustin, the bishop,
was very low. They were praying for him in the churches at Hippo, and
especially in the Basilica of Peace, where he had preached and worked for
others so long. Possidius of Guelma was in the bishop's room, and the
priests and monks. They sent up their prayers with those of the dying man.
And no doubt they sang for the last time before him one of those liturgical
chants which long ago at Milan had touched him even to tears, and now,
since the siege, in the panic caused by the Barbarians, they dared not sing
any more. Augustin, guarding himself even now against the too poignant
sweetness of the melody, attended only to the sense of the words. And he
said:

"My soul thirsts after the living God. When shall I appear before His
face? "

Or again:

"He Who is Life has come down into this world. He has suffered our death,
and He has caused it to die by the fullness of His life. . . . Life has come
down to you--and will you not ascend towards Him and live? . . . "

He was passing into Life and into Glory. He was going very quietly, amid
the chanting of hymns and the murmur of prayers. . . . Little by little his
eyes were veiled, the lines of his face became rigid. His lips moved no
more. Possidius, the faithful disciple, bent over him. Like a patriarch of
the Scriptures, Augustin of Thagaste "slept with his fathers. ". . .

* * * * *

And now, whatever may be the worth of this book, which has been planned
and carried out in a spirit of veneration and love for the saint, for the
great heart and the great intellect that Augustin was, for this unique type
of the Christian, the most perfect and the most admirable perhaps that
has ever been seen--the author can only repeat in all humility what was
said fifteen hundred years ago by the Bishop of Guelma, Augustin's first
biographer:

"I do desire of the charity of those into whose hands this work shall fall,
to join with me in thanksgiving and blessing to Our Lord, Who has inspired
me to make known this life to those present and those absent, and has given
me the strength to do it. Pray for me and with me, that I may try here
below to follow in the steps of this peerless man, whom, by God's goodness,
I have had the happiness of living with for such a long time. . . . "


THE END











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